


Heaven Must Be Beautiful Right Now (Cause They Got You, Babe)

by Miyai



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Father/Son Incest, Fix-It of Sorts, Going To Heaven, Happy Ending, M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, don't know how that happened, major character death but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miyai/pseuds/Miyai
Summary: In the end, it's over quick at least.





	Heaven Must Be Beautiful Right Now (Cause They Got You, Babe)

**Author's Note:**

> My attempt at fixing what can't be fixed. Technically not canon divergent yet. Title from 'Heaven' by Natalia Kills.

In the end, it's over quick at least.

Ever since all of this started, the end of the world, Rick's been wondering about death, how it would come for him, and lately, wishing it would. After Carl – nothing made sense anymore, and there wasn't anything that had been able to pull him back from the edge, neither Judith nor Michonne enough to fill the shattered void where his heart had been, before his only son died in his arms.

And now, his time has come. Rick's in too much pain to feel relieved; Negan's bat cracking his skull, the sick sound and the impossible pain somehow disconnected from him. Darkness envelopes him, and the jeering voice of the leader of the Saviors fades away, thins out until nothing is left.

*

The next thing Rick sees is light. Incredible, blinding, all-encompassing light. Yet he is not blinded, the light is soft, and warm, and it permeates everything.

He finds himself standing at the edge of a big clearing, his bare feet feeling the dirt and flowers beneath, without recalling how he got there. The pain he was experiencing not even a minute ago – just gone, like it was never there. When he touches his head, the back of his neck, there's no blood on his hands.

Feeling weirdly peaceful, he looks around. Well-formed, high trees line the clearing that's in full bloom, the gentle breeze rustling the leaves, the grass softly bowing. It's silent but not eerily so. He feels... safe. He hasn't in a long time.

His last memory is Negan, and still, here he is. He should be more unsettled by this, he realizes, yet the only emotion he can muster is vague relief.

Slowly, he starts walking, making his way towards the middle of the clearing. As he gets closer, he suddenly sees a figure standing there, unmoving like a statue.

“Hey,” Rick calls out, but the sound comes out less harsh and way more quiet than he had anticipated.

The man – he can see him more clearly now – doesn't move, just stands there patiently until Rick has reached him. A trench coat combined with a dark, ill-fitting suit make the dark-haired stranger appear somewhat messy, seemingly belying his calm face, and grave expression.

“Welcome, Rick Grimes,” the man says. “I have been waiting for you.”

“Oh, sorry,” Rick says, then immediately shakes his head at himself. What does it matter now? Time? He just knows it doesn't apply to him anymore, here, in this radical, unfathomable elsewhere where the air tastes so sweet, and a bit forlorn. He already knows the answer.

“Where am I?” he asks still. “Am I...?”

The strange man gives no indication that he has heard him, doesn't move a muscle, so Rick pushes on.

“Dead? Did Negan kill me?”

“Yes,” the man says, and then, “condolences”, but it comes out like it doesn't really matter to him, like it can't. Rick supposes that's fair. Why would this man care, anyway?

“Who are you, then? What is this?”

For the first time, the man shows emotion, a glimmer of mirth in his blue eyes, and the barest hint of a smile around the corners of his mouth. “What do you think this is, Rick Grimes?”

A troubling question, indeed. Rick used to be a man of faith, back when, but then the dead started walking, and maybe they were in Hell the whole time they were alive. Which would make this -

“Heaven?”

“A version of it, yes,” the man says. “Nirvana, Heaven, Valhalla. Your kind has thought up many names over the years yet it is all the same to us.”

“No Hell for me?” Rick's honestly a little surprised, all righteous intent, protecting his family, saving people aside. He has done unspeakable things, killed so many. And now, this is his reward?

“What is Hell but unending suffering?” the man challenges. “Do you believe you haven't suffered enough, Rick Grimes?”

Rick is kind of weirded out by the man constantly using his whole name, for several reasons, but the implicit meaning of the question is nonetheless very clear.

“Alright, I get it. Enough pain, enough death, enough everythin'.”

“Yes.”

“And what now? So this is Heaven. Am I just gonna stay here, on this clearing, forever and ever, Amen, until Judgment day?”

“You think Judgment is not yet past? No, Rick Grimes. There will be no expiration date, no fearing a latter day. Heaven is yours to hold, and cherish. Your soul can rest now. There will be nothing but peace.” The last part the man says almost tenderly, soothing.

Rick still thinks he should feel... more about this, anything, really, but he is so tired all of a sudden. He understands what the man means now. Resting forever sounds good about now. He can't, though, now yet.

“What about the others?” he demands, “Maggie, Michonne, _Judith_?”

“That does not have to concern you now. Rest assured that life will go on, and at the end, salvation is waiting for all of them. Your part is done.”

It's a testament to how sick and tired of his life Rick has become that he does not protest this. Michonne – she will look after Judith, she's strong, always has been. He just hopes the loss of him is not the thing that breaks her. He sincerely doubts it, though.

“Okay,” he says. “So, this clearing – this is Heaven?” He's not complaining, just asking. Man's gonna spend eternity somewhere, he wants to know what he's getting.

For the second the man ( _angel_?) smiles. “Heaven is not one place, it is multitude. This is just the crossroads, so to speak; it's temporary, and you may choose your own way from here. You decide your own little corner of Heaven, and you may build it out of happy memories.”

It's been a while since Rick could recall those easily if he's being honest, and he doesn't know how to do what the man is saying. But before he can ask yet again, the man lifts an arm, too mechanically to call it a flourish, but akin to that, and points to a door that has materialized a few feet away while Rick wasn't looking.

“You will not have to be alone,” the angel declares gravely. “Someone has been waiting all this time.”

The door knob is turning before Rick can react, and his heart is suddenly beating hard, high up in his throat, seized by impossible hope and certainty alike. The door swings open into the clearing, and there, in the frame he stands, the one Rick has been dying to see – Carl.

Carl, with his Sheriff's hat, the gangly, teenaged body, and a smile so wide it has to hurt, if anything hurts in Heaven at all. “Dad,” he says by way of greeting.

Rick doesn't even notice swaying forward, crossing the distance between them, crushing his son against his own body. “Carl, Carl, my boy,” he murmurs into his son's long hair, now distraught and shaking. It's just too much.

He feels arms encircle his rib cage in return, and then Carl says “Hi, Dad” again, words Rick thought he'd never get to hear again. He sobs, clinging to the lithe body in his arms. He hasn't cried since his knees hit the earth over Carl's grave, his tears dripping into the dirt.

“It's alright, Dad,” Carl says now, still hugging him back.“It's all good, we're safe. It's over now.”

“I thought I lost you,” Rick says, voice a little wobbly, still teary-eyed. He grabs Carl's arms, puts some distance between the two of them, not too much, so he can look at his son, make sure he's okay.

“Well, technically,” Carl says, “you did”, and he makes it sound so breezy, so easy like his father didn't have to kill him himself, like he didn't have to bury his child.

Trying to smile regardless, Rick cups his face, looks into Carl's eyes – a pair again, Heaven erasing all the bad stuff presumably –, wanting to make sure that yes, it really is his son, his baby boy, back with him now.

Covering his father's hands on his face with his own, Carl smiles back, full wattage. He seems happier than Rick has ever seen him when he was alive, well-groomed and rested, all traces of hardship gone, and suddenly, inexplicably, Rick is glad Carl didn't have to suffer as long as Rick did.

They look into each other's eyes, speechless for a moment, and Rick feels the strongest urge to lean down and cover Carl's full lips with his own.

There's that spark between the two of them again that's been there for the last few years, and if Rick didn't think it would get them kicked out of Heaven immediately, he wouldn't have hesitated this time, reunited after this long.

Instead, he drops his arms, backs up a few inches, just enough so that it doesn't feel recklessly close where he's standing. He swears he hears Carl suppress a disappointed sigh, but that's neither here nor there.

“What happens now?” Rick asks.

Carl's eyes light up, and he grabs Rick's wrist. “Now,” he says, “we go home.”

*

The next morning, when Rick wakes up, he's disoriented. Confusing memories pile up in his head, Negan, dying, the clearing, the angel in a trenchcoat, and most of all, Carl. He looks over, and finds his son, sound asleep next to him, and he can't help tearing up a little. It feels unreal, like grace wasted on him, unfathomable.

They're in his and Lori's old bedroom, he realizes, the unnaturally bright light streaming in through the big windows, painting ornaments on the tapestry.

Memories from yesterday – if that's still how time works, here – come flooding back; him following Carl through the door into their own little corner of Heaven, as Carl explained it; finding their old house standing alone by a little lake; exploring the house and the area around it, Carl never out of arm's reach. 

Rick sighs contentedly, smiling down at his sleeping son. They collapsed into bed in the early hours of the morning. Exhausted from talking for what felt like an eternity, finally beginning to work through what happened over the last few years, giving voice to things they had not dared touch upon while alive.

I could get used to this, Rick thinks. Their past life – it already feels so distant, like it was all a particularly bad dream.

Carl wakes up a little while after, and he smiles sleepily when he sees his father, his face unguarded and precious.

“Morning, Dad,” he yawns, and Rick grins, can't resist ruffling Carl's messed up hair even further.

His son just grumbles indignantly, batting his hand away clumsily. “Don't.”

“Good morning to you too,” Rick says.

They sit in silence for a bit, then Rick speaks again. “So, what do you do around here? How do you keep yourself occupied?”

Carl snorts, turns onto his side, facing Rick. His sleep shirt slips down around his collarbone, exposing tantalizing, sleep-warm skin. Rick looks away. “Okay, first: I don't think I've ever heard you ask that many questions in all my life combined before yesterday.” He waves off Rick's protest, snickering. “And second, whatever you want. Eat, sleep, read, garden. Visit old memories. Visit old friends. Whatever you want.” Old friends? Rick will definitely have to follow up on that later. For now -

“And you?” The question is not just for show, Rick's really interested. This thing here, Heaven – maybe here Carl can be the person he would have become back then, without the goddamn Apocalypse.

Carl's fingers tangle in Rick's shirt, pulling him back down next to Carl. “I usually sleep for a while longer.”

“Then we'll do that.”

Then, to Rick's surprise, Carl keeps pushing, rearranging their bodies so that he can pillow his head on his father's chest, burrowing into his neck.

“Ah – um, Carl?”

Carl cuddles – that's the only apt word here – closer. “What? Do you mind?”

Of course Rick doesn't, but he feels like he should. He shakes his head no, and Carl grins triumphantly, returns to his previous position. Cautiously, Rick slings his arm over Carl's shoulders.

“I missed you,” Carl says, voice just a smidge unsteady. “I mean, I knew it wouldn't be long – sorry, Dad – not with Negan and everything that was going on, but still. I wasn't lonely, exactly...”

Rick smooths his hand up and down Carl's back. “But it's better now. I hear ya. Imagine what it's like for me. You knew we'd see each other again, but me? When I lost you, I – I just didn't know....” He trails off, unable even now to face the emotions rising in his chest, crazy grief, violent mourning, with a big death wish mixed in. He got that taken care of alright. “Have you been alone this whole time?”

Carl shrugs. “Not really. Been visiting, like I said. Took me a while to figure out how, though. Most people have their Heaven to themselves, you know?” He lifts his head, looks at Rick. “All of them are alone. Don't you wonder, why you're here with me, Dad? Not Mom, or anyone else?”

Rick can't answer that. For him, the most important thing has always been Carl, and while seeing Lori again seems like a great idea, there is no one else he would want to spend eternity with. So no, actually, he hasn't wondered. He would have wondered, had it been any other way.

Something in his eyes seems to convey the statement, and Carl's frown melts from his brow. “Some people,” he says, like he's quoting something, “they share. Special cases, like soul mates. The angels told me. They don't care what we do, Dad. We're free.” Implication is heavy in Carl's words, bordering on innuendo, and. Well.

He's obviously waiting for Rick's reaction, anything, but for a second, it just doesn't compute. Rick literally can't believe it. All the guilt, the feeling of being torn apart over what has been coming a long time between him and Carl – and now, here, after they've both died, and gone to literal Heaven – this? He's allowed to...? He gets to have...?

“Oh, for fuck's sake.” The feeling of Carl's lips on his own startles him out of his thoughts, and he jerks in surprise. Carl laughs into their kiss, their first, oh so very tender kiss, and Rick growls, pulls him closer.

Carl's mouth tastes every bit as sinful as Rick's always imagined, and there's no feeling quite like his hands in Rick's hair, his beard, Rick's skin lighting up wherever he's being touched.

Rick's surprised not to find himself dying to have everything, have Carl immediately, a blazing need. Instead, it's a slow burn, deeper but way more calm.

They keep it slow, despite all the waiting, making out lazily for what feels like hours. Who knows whether that's really how much time passes, or maybe it doesn't pass at all.

After a while, they separate, and Carl cuddles back into Rick's side, both of them breathing heavily. They have time, though, so they feel no need to rush. They just lie there, together, finally, with no end in sight; safe and at peace at last.

 


End file.
